Chapter 28：The Assignment

Dawn's research on "The Mink Corporation" yielded results that she found extremely interesting. The Company was about to float its shares in the public and so it had released its company's prospectus for the general public to see its finances and profits. Everything looked very healthy but Dawn wasn't satisfied so she dug deeper and checked recent news. There was a talk about its takeover by another well-established company, but the Silver House management had refused the offer. Dawn took her notes down. For two days she looked up in almost every report, news or figures that she could get hold of and downloaded everything important. It was time to now analyze it and then write it all down. The assignment was supposed to be submitted in the next three days.

The dragon had become an enigma for him. Being the Gatekeeper he had gone to the Falshire Forests twice to check upon the little creature but he was simply baffled when he couldn't find the Whispering Eoben on its spot. He thought that it moved, but then it was just nowhere. It was crazy. So when Dawn asked him to take her to the Forests, he came there as soon as possible, a little panicky. Did the tree gobbled the dragon and vanished? He didn't pour his worries to Dawn.

On the centaur's back, she headed to the woods carrying a large box of flesh pieces she had bought from the local market only for it. When they reached the spot, Arawn was shocked to see the Whispering Eoben standing right there in its place in all its glory. The leaves were so dense that it looked like they had formed a tight sphere. The snow fell all around it. Small clumps of it settled on its leaves but the moment they grew any larger, the branches wiggled shaking the snow off. Its blue-green leaves susurrated and perked up. Dawn got off and rushed to the tree with her lunch box and extra mufflers that she had brought with her. The winter was about to become harsher. Her dragon was so small that it needed all the warmth it could get.

The moment the tree sensed Dawn, the branches opened up as though it relaxed upon seeing her. They heaved a sigh. Dawn heard that. She stopped with a jerk for a moment but resumed climbing up the tree. On her way up she saw tufts of feathers, insect wings and tiny bones trapped in the branches. Her leg muscles tightened and beads of sweat appeared on the lip thinking about the worse. Surely the wild animals had eaten it. Suddenly a squeal dispelled her doubts.

Relaxed to the core, a playful grin spread on her face and she drummed her fingers against the floor of the tree house. Her fears were unwarranted. She saw the dragon, which had managed to climb the ceiling of the tree house. It squeaked shrilly and bobbed its body up and down upon seeing Dawn. The dragon clambered to her and attacked the meat when she opened the box. Dawn was happy to notice that although it hadn't grown in height it looked healthier than before. She caressed it lovingly. She examined the tree around and noticed that all the foreign elements were slowly dropping to the ground. The tree had not only protected the dragon, it was trapping food for it to eat. The thought was mentally comforting.

Once the dragon was well fed, she took him down to Arawn and enquired, "How do I teach it to fly?" She left it on the ground for some exercise. Once again the dragon did what it enjoyed—it played around the centaur's legs while breathing little tufts of fire or smoke while the centaur stood there rooted to the spot.

Standing with his arms tightly folded across his chest all this time and watching the Eoben tree, Arawn was dumbstruck. But he burst into laughter hearing Dawn's question. "You don't have to."

Dawn pursed her lips. She played with it and before the nightfall she took it back to the cabin. When she started for home, she could feel it becoming sad and immediately her mind was also shrouded with unhappiness.

"I will come back as soon as I can. Stay safe until then," she whispered hoping it would listen to her while looking back from the back of Arawn. She observed that the tree had started to close in again around its precious occupant like a shell hiding its pearl.

He left her a few hundred meters away from the cottage. "Thanks Arawn," she said as she mounted off his back. "No problem," he replied and returned back to the Falshire Forests. That night Dawn slept peacefully.

For the next three days, she worked diligently upon her assignment. She wrote a detailed report about it. The day she submitted her report was the day when the Company opened its shares for the public. Dawn applied for buying five hundred shares only on an experimental basis.

The Professor of Finance was shocked to read her report. In it she had clearly mentioned that the Company wouldn't be able to sustain more than two years. She was sure that it would crumble and incur large debts. She went at lengths to call the owner a fool for investing into a project that anyone could foresee going down. The Professor saved her report. He was amused at her findings and planned it on publishing at a later date.

A month later when the shares were allocated, Dawn got only a hundred but she had anticipated that kind of allocation. On the day it listed, the share prices went through the roof. Her experiment had started.

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A pattern was set with her dragon slowly, bit by bit over the next year. She visited it whenever possible. The dragon was growing in size and it was now just a little over one foot. Not very satisfying, but what could Dawn do? She wondered where all that meat went?

Cole would often ask her about her ventures to the meadow and insisted on accompanying her but she wriggled out with one or the other excuse. One night he had fought with her so much about this issue that she became furious. Her temper triggered and she ran out of the house in that cold towards the meadows. By the time she reached the Falshire Forests, she had lost control of the self and shape shifted. In a frenzy, she ran deep inside the woods and stopped beneath the only tree that appeared fresh and smelled of food – the Whispering Eoben. Sniffing the meat, the werewolf clawed its trunk with all its might leaving deep gashes. However, the tree stood tall without reacting to the animal that lacerated it relentlessly, and tightly closed itself around the baby who was absolutely quiet throughout the ordeal, feeling the agonizing wrath of the beast, of its Master.

Arawn found her next morning sprawled on the ground that was covered with a thick layer of snow with her dragon sitting near her head as if protecting her. It looked wistful and flapped its wings until she was on his back, tied securely. It watched them leave and then slowly glided to its temporary abode.

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The report was published a week later.